Frank Kogan

"What is a nonsingle?" I hear you ask. A nonsingle is an album cut that never becomes a single and never acts like a single (so, doesn't get a lot of airplay or get talked about by more than one set of friends and doesn't chart for more than a couple of weeks), or it's a leaked track that wasn't leaked by the artist and doesn't act like a single (see previous parenthesis). So, for example, Jay-Z's "Takeover" was an album cut that was never pushed as a single, but it's not eligible in the nonsingles category, the reason being that it was chatted about and responded to all over the place, was the subject of an answer song, etc.

Top Five Nonsingles Of The '00s

1. t.A.T.u. "Kosmos" [English-language version is "Cosmos (Outer Space)"]
2. María Daniela Y Su Sonido Lasser "Duri Duri"
3. Margaret Berger "Robot Song"
4. Fannypack "Smack It Up"
5. Lindsay Lohan "Nobody 'Til You"

(Didn't do a 6 through 10, but if you want a top ten, just insert your five favorite Cassie leaks.)

"Kosmos" is the standard t.A.T.u. exploitation of their supposedly forbidden supposed love, and in all its transparent obviousness it is just utterly, exquisitely, beautifully moving. "Robot Song" does the same trick, forbidden romance as a gag, "I'm in love with a robot," and then fakes out the gag with its own exquisite beauty, is as intense for me as Murnau's Tabu or Ophuls' Earrings Of Madame de...; I like to program "Robot Song" and "Cosmos (Outer Space)" back-to-back: come to get me when the stars die, another time, another place, another world, you're the only one who makes me feel a thing, guilt for the second best, feel no more, feel no less, our home forever is outer space, black stars and endless seas, outer space, new hope, new destinies, outer space, forever we'll be in outer space.

"Smack It Up" is a bratsmack, and "Duri Duri" is a Mexican Italodisco '80s classic given it's own '00s smackiness. "Nobody 'Til You" is - what? - the second most beautiful John Shanks song, a gorgeous flood of guitar chords.